The Running Man
by Stephen King
Contents
…Minus 093 and COUNTING… On the fourth floor Richards’s group
Overview
Richards and the other applicants are stripped of their old clothes and issued identical Games coveralls, deepening the dehumanizing machinery of the Network’s process. The chapter emphasizes how the Games convert desperate men into anonymous participants while Richards remains alert, sardonic, and preoccupied with the family that drove him here.
Summary
On the fourth floor, Ben Richards and the other fifty applicants are herded into a bare room lined with incinerator slots. A gaunt Games employee in a lab coat orders them to undress, remove any valuables, and drop their clothes into the slots before receiving official Games coveralls.
The men grumble but obey. Richards needles the employee by asking whether the employee will also be a contestant, but the man only looks puzzled and moves the process along. Richards throws away his old clothes and watches flame consume them below, reinforcing the sense that the Games are stripping the men of their former identities.
Workers bring in baskets of dark blue coveralls marked with the Games emblem. Richards chooses an extra-large size and is surprised that the soft, tough garment fits him well. Once everyone is dressed alike, Richards feels anonymous, as if he has “lost his face.”
The group is moved into another waiting room with a Free-Vee playing. They are told they will be called in groups of ten. While waiting, Richards looks out at the rainy city from higher in the building and thinks about Sheila.
Who Appears
- Ben RichardsContestant applicant; resists with sarcasm while feeling stripped of identity in Games coveralls.
- Gaunt Games employeeLab-coated official who orders applicants to undress, discard clothes, and change into coveralls.
- Sheila RichardsRichards’s wife; absent but present in Richards’s thoughts as he waits.